The Real News: International Founding Committee

Paul Jay (Canada), Founding Chair of The Real News. He was Creator and Executive Producer of CBC Newsworld's debate program counterSpin. He is also an award winning documentary filmmaker and founding Chair of Hot Docs!, the Canadian International Documentary Film Festival. www.jfilm.org

Susan Adelman (USA), Peacemaker, feminist and philanthropist, Susan is a member of the boards of the ACLU of Southern California and the Venice Family Clinic.

Richard Belzer (USA), Stand-up comic, actor, talk-show host and author. Best known as Detective John Munch of TV series Homicide and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, his interest in news and media began when he worked as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post. Belzer's (often caustic) wit has led to repeat guest spots on shows such as Real Time with Bill Maher, Howard Stern and Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Medea Benjamin (USA), Leading peace activist, co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange and the women's peace group Code Pink. She helped form the United for Peace and Justice coalition. Her work focuses on unfair global trade policies and promoting "fair trade" alternatives.

Tony Benn (UK), For fifty years a Labour MP, served as Cabinet Minister and Chairman of the Labour Party. Benn is Chair of the UK anti-war coalition and spoke at the massive London rally against war in Iraq. www.tonybenn.com

Charles Benton (USA), Chair of the Benton Foundation. A former chair of the National Commission on Libraries and Information and the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Public Interest Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters. www.benton.org

Julie Bergman Sender (USA), Co-founder of Balcony Films, a media consulting firm creating messaging and branding opportunities for a wide range of progressive organizations. She is a former producer and film executive with Warner Brothers, Sydney Pollack's Mirage Enterprises and Jodie Foster's Egg Pictures.

George Biggar (Canada), Vice President of Policy, Planning and External Relations for Legal Aid Ontario.

Larry Birns (USA), Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a research group that has monitored U.S.-Latin American relations, since 1975. He is a former defence researcher and member of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London, and public affairs officer for the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America. www.coha.org

Robert Blair (Canada), President of Photon Control Inc., he is past chair of Nova Corporation, Husky Petroleum and Foothills Pipeline and was appointed as an Officer (1990), and subsequently Companion (1995), of the Order of Canada.

Val Blokowski (Canada), Former business manager for CBC Newsworld, Executive Director of the Education Network of Ontario and a planning study consultant for The Real News on business models.

Jack Blum (USA), Lawyer, as Senate attorney investigated BCCI and Lockheed Aircraft's overseas bribes. He is a consultant to the United Nations Center on Transnational Corporations and the UN Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention.

Tanja Bosch (South Africa), Station Manager of Bush Radio in Cape Town, Africa's oldest community radio station. She completed her PhD in Mass Communication as a Fulbright Scholar at Ohio University with a dissertation on community radio and community identity in South Africa.

Jackson Browne (USA), Over three decades, Browne has written and performed some of the most literate, moving and politically poignant songs in popular music (including "Information Wars" about TV news). A long time activist for human rights, a clean environment and diversity in media, he was awarded the John Steinbeck Award, bestowed on artists whose works best exemplify Steinbeck's environmental and social values. In 2004, Browne was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Bruce Springsteen.

Helen Caldicott, MD (Australia), Pediatric physician and President, Nuclear Policy Research Institute. Recipient of the Lannan Foundation 2003 Prize for Cultural Freedom. Named as one of the most influential women of the 20th Century by the Smithsonian Institute.

Ben Cashdan (South Africa), Author, lecturer, documentary filmmaker, was an economic advisor in the office of President Nelson Mandela. He produces films for SABC, BBC and Channel Four.

John Cherian (India), Journalist and Deputy Editor of Frontline, India's largest English-language national magazine. www.flonet.com

Afsan Chowdhury (Bangladesh), Director of Advocacy and Human Rights at BRAC in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Development work and journalism with UNICEF, BBC, CNN, and Deutsche Welle. He studied the impact of satellite TV with the Media South Asia Project.

Jeff Cohen (USA), Founder of FAIR, the New York-based media watch organization. He has been a commentator on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, and senior producer on MSNBC's "Donahue". He is a Real News consultant on developing its carriage campaign.

Diane Conn (USA), has an extensive background in film, finance and banking. In addition, she is a community and political activist at the local and national levels.

John Connolly (USA), National President of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. His thirty-year acting career includes appearances in television and feature films, and in Broadway, Off-Broadway and regional theatre.

Paul Copeland (Canada), Lawyer, has been a Bencher (director) of the Law Society of Upper Canada since 1990, is Co-President of the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted, a member of the Law Union of Ontario and was a member of the International Commission of Jurists.

Mary Cornish (Canada), Senior partner in a leading Canadian public interest law firm. As an international consultant, she has advised the World Bank, the European Economic Community and Swedish and New Zealand governments.

Alan Curtis (USA), President and CEO of the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation. Dr. Curtis is the former executive director of former president Carter's Interagency Urban and Regional Policy Group, served as Urban Policy Adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and has published 10 books on related topics.

Brad deGraf (USA), Entrepreneur and strategist at the intersection of digital media, international finance and social change. Besides founding two seminal digital animation studios, he is the founder of Media Venture Collective and advises international aid agencies on digital animation in developing countries.

Pamela de Maigret (USA), Filmmaker, producer and journalist. De Maigret has created and produced documentaries, television series and movies-of-the-week, including co-writing her own life story for CBS. Previously a foreign correspondent and US Congress liaison, she is currently researching and writing a book about the political disenfranchisement of the moderate center in American politics, in part drawing on her own experience as a life-long Republican activist.

John Duncan (Canada), Lawyer, represents domestic and foreign television and film producers in all aspects of development, production and exploitation, with particular expertise in the areas of international co-production, production financing and rights acquisition.

Jodie Evans (USA), Peace and social justice campaigner. Evans co-founded Code Pink: Women for Peace and has been a political campaign organizer, administrator, book editor and peace conference convener. She opened the first environmental department store, Terra Verde, along with Tom Hayden and Cathryn Tiddens in the early 1990s.

Mike Farrell (USA), Actor and producer, Vice President of the Actors' Screen Guild. As a political activist, he lobbied against the firing of gay teachers. Mike is also a leader of Artists Against the War and is a member of California's Commission on Judicial Performance.

David Fenton (USA), Founder and Chair of Fenton Communications, developing public relations campaigns for public interest groups. Formerly director of public relations at Rolling Stone magazine, he was named ‚Äúone of the 100 most influential P.R. people of the 20th Century" by PR Week.

Tom Fenton (UK), His long career as a foreign correspondent for CBS News covered more than three decades of world events. Fenton is now a leading critic of the journalistic failures that left Americans unprepared for 9/11 and the author of Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News and the Danger to Us All.

Larry Fink (USA), Fink has been taking photographs for over 40 years and has been shown widely since the early 1970s. He's had one-person exhibitions at major venues including MOMA (1979), Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC (1997) and internationally. He has been awarded two Guggenheim fellowships and two NEA grants.

Laura Flanders (USA), Air America radio host and journalist. She is the author of Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting. Flanders was the Founding Director of the Women's Desk at the media-watch group FAIR. www.lauraflanders.com

Bill Fletcher, Jr. (USA), President and Chief Executive Officer of TransAfrica Forum. Bill was formally the vice president of International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center/National Labor College of the AFL-CIO. www.transafricaforum.org

Bryn Freedman (USA), Award-winning journalist, writer and producer, currently an Executive Producer at GRB Entertainment. In addition to teaching journalism to graduate students at USC's Annenberg School for Communication, Bryn was in charge of research and development for a Youth News initiative aimed at producing innovative online and broadcast news programs for 12-22 year olds.

Janeane Garofalo (USA), Air America radio host, comedian, actress, activist and political commentator. Film credits include Reality Bites, The Truth About Cats and Dogs, Larger Than Life and Mystery Men. She is a member of Win Without War, MoveOn.org, and the Policy Think Tank 18to25.com. www.airamericaradio.com/shows/majorityreport

Lila Garrett (USA), was the Southern California Chair of the Kucinich Campaign for President and has been President of the Southern California Americans for Democratic Action. She hosts political radio talk show "Connect The Dots" on Pacifica's KPFK and is an award-winning TV writer, producer, and director. In 1996 she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Lifetime Achievement Award.

[[Amy Goodman (USA), Host and Executive Producer of Democracy Now!, a TV and radio show she helped launch in 1996. She began her career in community radio at Pacifica's WBAI in New York and produced their Evening News for ten years. www.democracynow.org

Ron Haggart (Canada), formerly co-executive producer of Face Off and counterSpin for CBC Newsworld. He worked as a Vancouver Sun reporter, columnist with The Globe and Mail and executive producer of Local Informational Programming for CityTV. He was a senior producer of the fifth estate on CBC.

Adrian Harewood (Canada), Toronto-based writer and broadcaster. He hosts the television programs The Directors, Literati and The Actors and was a host of CBC Newsworld's counterSpin.

Buzz Hargrove (Canada), National President of the Canadian Auto Workers Union. He is also Vice President of the Canadian Labour Congress executive committee and co-author of Labour of Love: The Fight to Create a More Humane Canada.

Sheri Herndon (USA), Served as News Director at KCMU Public Radio in Seattle and is co-founder of the Independent Media Center in Seattle. There she developed the Indymedia network's communications and governance structures and managed internal policy development, legal and network collaboration projects.

Len Hill (USA), Producer of over 50 television movies, miniseries and dramatic series. He served as Vice-President for ABC television movies and entertainment, and has served on the board of Common Cause, Los Angeles Conservancy and the California Film Commission.

Jesse Hirsh (Canada), Founder of the Media Collective, TAO (tao.ca) and Director of Openflows.org, a professional services firm specializing in free software for open source intelligence.

Audrey Huntley (Canada), Community researcher of mixed Native and settler ancestry. Huntley has co-authored a number of reports focusing on colonization and violence against Native women and produced and directed a documentary on one of hundreds of Native women who have been murdered or gone missing in Canada for CBC News Sunday.

Tom Hurwitz (USA), Documentary Director of Photography. He's won four Academy Awards, over a dozen Emmy Awards and the Camera D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. His credits include Harlan County USA.

Zane Ibrahim (South Africa), Managing Director of Bush Radio, "mother" of community radio in South Africa.

Mark Karlin (USA), Founder and publisher of BuzzFlash.com, a pro-democracy news and commentary Internet site that draws more than 5 million visitors a month. www.buzzflash.com

Allan King (Canada), Acclaimed filmmaker whose films include Warrendale and Dying at Grace. Former president of the Directors Guild of Canada.

Naomi Klein (Canada), Journalist and author of the best-seller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies and Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate. She writes syndicated columns for The Globe and Mail, The Guardian and The Nation magazine. www.nologo.org

Sashi Kumar (India), Journalist, national television anchor, producer and entrepreneur. Pioneered India's first regional language satellite TV channel, Asianet (which began telecast in the Malayalam language in 1992) and the first state wide cable TV network in the south Indian state of Kerala. He is the Founder-Chairman of the Media Development Foundation, a not-for-profit Trust dedicated to media education, research and monitoring, which runs the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai (www.asianmedia.org). He has just made his first feature film, Kaya Taran (www.kayataran.com).

Tawana Kupe (South Africa), Head of Media Studies at the University of Witwatersrand's School of Literature and Language Studies. Has taught Media and Communication Studies since 1993 at the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Oslo, Norway and the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, South Africa.

Lewis Lapham (USA), Editor emeritus of Harper's Magazine, has several books of essays to his credit including Money and Class in America, Hotel America and Waiting for the Barbarians. www.harpers.org

Avi Lewis (Canada), Broadcast journalist, documentary filmmaker (The Take) and former host and producer of counterSpin on CBC Newsworld, where he presided over more than 500 televised debates.

Stephen Lewis (Canada), United Nations' Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. From 1984 to 1988 he served as Canada's Ambassador to the United Nations and he is the former Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF. He heads The Stephen Lewis Foundation, dedicated to easing the pain of HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Hanadi Loubani (Canada), PhD candidate and teaching assistant at York University, Toronto. Her creative and critical essays are published in Fuse Magazine, Anthology of the Poetry of Arab Women in North America and the Women & War Journal.

Eric Margolis (USA/Canada), Author, syndicated international foreign affairs columnist for the Sun National Media Chain (Canada) and regular foreign affairs columnist for Dawn, Pakistan's leading English language newspaper. He is a frequent TV and radio commentator on foreign affairs and Contributing Editor to American Conservative Magazine, Washington, DC.

Gavin MacFadyen (UK), Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London and a television producer formerly with Granada Television's World in Action, BBC 24 Hours, the Money Programme, Panorama, Channel 4 Dispatches, ITV, ABC and PBS.

Paul Maslin (USA), Pollster and strategist for the "Dean for America" campaign, and Internet-based fundraising consultant and pollster for The Real News planning study.

Robert McChesney (USA), Founder and President of Free Press, an American non-profit, media reform organization. He is a Professor at the University of Illinois and the author or editor of eight books on the media and democracy. www.robertmcchesney.com.

Judith McCormack (Canada), Adjunct law professor and Executive Director of Downtown Legal Services, a clinical education program at the University of Toronto. She is a former chair of the Ontario Labour Relations Board and a recipient of the Ontario Law Society Medal for an outstanding lawyer whose service is in accordance with the highest ideals of the profession.

Nicco Mele (USA), Howard Dean's campaign webmaster and Internet strategist, was webmaster at Common Cause and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Named one of America's "best and brightest" by Esquire magazine in December 2003.

Jyoti Mistry (South Africa), Filmmaker and senior lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Head of Television at its School of Arts.

George Monbiot (UK), Weekly columnist for The Guardian. He is the author of the bestselling books Captive State, The Age of Consent, and Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man's Land. Among many prizes he has won is the UN Global 500 award, presented to him by Nelson Mandela. He is a visiting professor at Oxford University. www.monbiot.com

Mishuk Munier (Bangladesh/Canada), Mishuk has filmed throughout South East Asia as a news and documentary cameraman for BBC World Service, ARD1 and Fox/StarTV. He was Head of News Operations for the first private terrestrial network in Bangladesh, Ekushey TV (ETV) and taught broadcast journalism at the University of Dhaka.

David Newman (Israel), Professor of Political Geography and a Senior Research fellow at Ben Gurion University in Israel, where he founded the department of Politics and Government. Editor of the International Journal, Geopolitics and former columnist for the Jerusalem Post.

John Nichols (USA), Washington correspondent for The Nation, associate editor of The Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin and co-founder of Free Press. Nichols has covered four U.S. presidential elections, along with elections and political activism in Britain, Ireland, Israel, India, Palestine, El Salvador, Jamaica and South Africa. He is the author, with Bob McChesney, of It's the Media, Stupid and Jews for Buchanan.

Debbie Nightingale (Canada), Debbie runs a Toronto production company. She was Assistant Programmer at C Channel, Canada's first cultural pay television station. She was also special projects and development officer at the Ontario Film Development Corporation and founding executive director of the Hot Docs! documentary festival.

Maureen O'Donnell (Canada), Former director of communications for the Toronto International Film Festival and Director of Television Publicity for the CBC. Maureen is an expert in strategic communications planning and marketing.

David Ostriker (Canada), Former head of business affairs for counterSpin, on CBC Newsworld. Ostriker served on the executive committee of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television and is a past chair of the Canadian Independent Film Caucus.

Greg Palast (USA), Author of the New York Times bestseller The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. An investigative journalist and broadcast journalist with BBC's Newsnight. www.gregpalast.com

Leo Panitch (Canada), Canada Research Chair in Comparative Political Economy and a Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto. Author of Global Capitalism and American Empire.

Robert Parry (USA), Renowned investigative reporter who exposed the Iran-Contra scandal while working at Associated Press, founder of the Internet's first investigative Zine, Consortiumnews.com, and author of four books, including Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.

Greg Philo (UK), Professor of Communications and Research Director of the Glasgow University Media Group. Co-author of the books Bad News, More Bad News and Really Bad News on media issues such as television coverage of the developing world and audience reception of television news. www.gla.ac.uk/departments/sociology/units/media.htm

Anne Pick (Canada), Independent producer and director, formerly with the CBC. She was a founding member of Hot Docs! and spent ten years on the executive board of the Documentary Organization of Canada.

Chellie Pingree (USA), President of Common Cause, a non-partisan citizen activists group with nearly 300,000 members and supporters and 38 state organizations. She is a former member of the Maine Senate. www.commoncause.org

N. Ram (India), Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of the The Hindu, Frontline, Business Line, and The Sportstar.

Elliot Richmond (Canada), Chartered Accountant, leading the entertainment practice at Horwath Orenstein in Toronto, where he is a partner.

Bill Roberts (Canada), President and CEO of VisionTV. Former secretary general of the North American Broadcasters Association (NABA), Senior Director-General of International Affairs of TVOntario and manager of the secretariat of the World Broadcasting Unions.

Michael Saykaly (Canada), President and Research Director of Optima Research, served as Vice President of CROP, Le Centre de recherches sur l'opinion publique, is the author of The Guide To Public Opinion Research and is advising The Real News on its Planning Study.

Danny Schechter (USA), Founder and Executive Editor of MediaChannel and Founder and Vice President/Executive Producer of Globalvision, Inc. A journalist on CNN and ABC, he is the author of The More You Watch, The Less You Know, and Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception (book and film). www.mediachannel.org

Jonathan Schell (USA), Writer and journalist, Peace and Disarmament Correspondent for The Nation magazine, a fellow at the Nation Institute, visiting lecturer at the Yale Law School. He was a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine from 1967 to 1987 and the author of The Fate of the Earth, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Stephanie Schriock (USA), National Finance Director for the Howard Dean Presidential Campaign, served at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as Director of Campaign Assistance. She is lead consultant for The Real News on fundraising issues.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman (USA), President and CEO of the Media Access Project, a public interest telecommunications law firm that promotes the public's First Amendment right to hear and be heard on electronic media. www.mediaaccess.org

Peter Scowen (Canada), Ideas editor, Toronto Star, former editor-in-chief of two weekly alternative newspapers (Hour and The Mirror, both in Montreal) and covered Quebec's National Assembly for CBC Radio. Author of Rogue Nation: The America the Rest of the World Knows.

Dimape Serenyane (South Africa), A principle in Herdbuoys McCann-Erickson, one of the most dynamic forces in the local advertising industry.

Norman Solomon (USA), Author of Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You and a syndicated columnist. He is Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts in the US and an associate of the media watch group FAIR.

Kim Spencer (USA), President and co-founder of LINK TV, a 24-hour non-commercial, viewer-supported television channel in 25 million US homes. He has made documentary films and TV specials on global issues and was a coordinating producer of ABC News Prime Time Live.

Jim Stanford (Canada), Economist with the Canadian Auto Workers, author of Paper Boom: Why Real Prosperity Requires a New Approach to Canada's Economy and a regular columnist with the The Globe and Mail.

Joanne St. Lewis (Canada), Assistant law professor at the University of Ottawa and founding Director of the Law Faculty's Education Equity Program. She was a Bencher of the Law Society of Upper Canada and was co-chair of the Canadian Bar Association Working Group on Racial Equality.

Jenny Toomey (USA), Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition, activist, musician. Co-ran Simple Machines independent record label. Former writer for The Washington Post, Village Voice and CNET.

Joe Trippi (USA), Head of Washington, DC political consultancy, Trippi & Associates. In 2004, Trippi was National Campaign Manager for Howard Dean's presidential campaign, praised for its effective use of internet technology for small-donor fundraising and for facilitating the development of a grassroots movement.

Gloria Tristani (USA), Managing Director of the Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, which advocates for those historically excluded from the media, particularly women and people of color. She is a former member of the Federal Communications Commission and the New Mexico State Corporation Commission. Tristani was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. ocinc.ucc.org

Siddharth Varadarajan (India), Journalist, commentator and Deputy Editor of The Hindu, was columnist with The Times of India. After studying economics at the London School of Economics and Columbia University, he taught at New York University for several years before joining The Times of India as an editorial writer in 1995.

Gore Vidal (USA), Author of twenty-two novels, five plays, many screenplays and short stories, more than two hundred essays and a memoir. In 1993, a collection of his criticism, United States: Essays 1952-1992, won the National Book Award. He has written many films including the classics Ben-Hur (1959) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959). He received a best screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival for The Best Man.

Kenneth Walker (South Africa/USA), Owner of Lion House Productions. Previously the Africa Bureau Chief for National Public Radio. Covered the White House for the Washington Star and ABC News and anchored USA Today: The Television Show.

Patrick Watson (Canada), Writer, director, actor, TV host and interviewer, was co-producer of the CBC series Close-up and produced and hosted CBC's flagship show This Hour Has Seven Days. Watson is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a former Chairman of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Celia Wexler ( USA), Vice President of Advocacy for Common Cause. A former journalist, Wexler has played a key role in developing Common Cause's lobbying and grassroots strategies on media reform.

Haskell Wexler (USA), Earned five Academy Award nominations and two Oscars for Best Cinematography. He was the fourth cinematographer to receive a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Wexler also writes, directs and produces his own films, including 1969's Medium Cool, a controversial look at the strife surrounding the anti-war movement and the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Bill Zimmerman (USA), Political consultant who produced all advertising commissioned by MoveOn.org in 2004. www.zimark.com

Howard Zinn (USA), Professor emeritus at Boston University, historian, author of numerous books including the classic A People's History of the United States and The Zinn Reader.